Protip: Skip the Search, Use a Wiki

Search features on your site and forums don’t work for the majority of your customers. Go ahead, search for something like “system specs” on your forum, I’ll wait.

Nine bajillion results, most of which were your customers talking to each other about their own systems, right?

Your new user, if he bothered using search (and he probably didn’t) got the same result, and posted a new thread wanting to know the system spec requirements. Your regular forum members fell over themselves posting /facepalm graphics, various versions of “use the search feature,” and worse. And your moderator locked the thread, his sympathies resting entirely with the forum regulars who have answered the same stupid question since the dawn of time. *My* sympathies are with the regulars, for crying out loud.

But your forum regulars are already giving you money. That new guy wasn’t yet giving you money, and you were hoping he would want to.

If only he had searched for “required system specs” or “official system specs,” you think. Wishful thinking. And you know what they say, wish in one and spit in the other – see which one fills up first. The system specs are on the official website, you mutter. They are, but no one believes they are real.

One solution is a wiki. Users contribute, and users flag content they believe is erroneous for your review. You can’t possibly maintain a better FAQ than they can. But do your part to promote it. When people go to post a new thread, you need to make sure the “before you post a question, have you checked the wiki” message appears above the text field.